Monday 29 July 2019

Another War With Iran?

A Long, Vicious And Forgotten War: The country which unleashed the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) was Iraq. For the duration, Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, was able to count on the strong support of the United States. The backing of Presidents Jimmy Carter’s and Ronald Reagan’s administrations never wavered, not even when, for the first time since World War One, the Iraqis deployed chemical weapons.

WILL THERE BE a war with Iran? Better to ask: will there be another war with Iran?

So many of us in the West have forgotten that the country, currently being fitted-up as the next Middle Eastern aggressor, endured eight years of extremely vicious fighting, at the cost of at least half-a-million lives, between 1980 and 1988.

The country which unleashed this war was Iraq. For the duration, Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, was able to count on the strong support of the United States. The backing of Presidents Ronald Reagan’s and Jimmy Carter’s administrations never wavered, not even when, for the first time since World War One, the Iraqis deployed chemical weapons.

The date of the Iran-Iraq War’s outbreak, September 1980, is significant. Eleven months earlier, 52 American hostages had been seized in an attack on the US Embassy in Tehran. When his secret mission to rescue the hostages ended in disaster, President Jimmy Carter quietly appealed to Saddam, who, as a secular Baathist, was no friend of Ayatollah Khomeini’s “Islamic Revolution”, for help. His reward, providing his army could win them, would be Iran’s most productive oil fields.   

The hostages’ eventual liberation, pointedly timed to coincide with Ronald Reagan’s inauguration, came in January 1981. When asked by a reporter if he would ever go back to Iran, one of the freed hostages replied: “Only in a B-52!” Thanks to Saddam’s illegal invasion, however, President Reagan was never required to unleash his strategic bombers on the Iranians. The Iraqi armed forces had become America’s proxy punishers. Iran had humiliated the United States, and for eight terrible years it was required to pay the price.

With another war on Iranian soil looming, it is interesting to register the size of the Iraqi invasion force. Saddam sent 100,000 troops and hundreds of battle tanks across the Iranian border in September 1980, while his air force flew hundreds of sorties against Iranian targets. The scale of Saddam’s invasion bears close comparison with the Anglo-Soviet invasion of neutral Iran in August 1941. That, too, was a massive affair, involving hundreds of thousands of British Empire and Soviet troops.

Remember, these were invasions of Iran – not by Iran. As strategic analyst, Dr Paul Buchanan, observes:

“[I]t should be remembered that modern Iran has not engaged in an unprovoked attack on another country. Although it supports and uses irregular military proxies, it is nowhere close to being the sponsor of terrorism that several Sunni Arab petroleum oligarchies are. In spite of its anti-Israel rhetoric (destined for domestic political consumption), it has not fired a shot in anger towards it.”

This is important. If war is unleashed against Iran, its 80 million citizens will find themselves engaged in a defensive war. Accordingly, the Iranians will enjoy the home-ground advantage. The Americans, and whoever is foolish enough to join them in such a mad endeavour, will find themselves, like the Iraqis, required to fight not only Iran’s people, but also its formidable geography. In addition to confronting human-beings, the United States will be battling snow-capped mountain ranges and waterless deserts.

The Americans are not daunted. When it comes to the Middle East (and its oil) the behaviour of the United States can only be described as unhinged. When Saddam dared to act independently of the US, the debt America owed his country, for its costly – and ultimately futile – war against its Iranian neighbour, was forgotten in a heartbeat.

And it wasn’t just Saddam who paid dearly for his failure to comprehend the full extent of America’s derangement. When US Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, was asked by CBS’s Lesley Stahl: “We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” Albright replied: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it.”

Astonishingly, the same people who beat the war-drums for the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, are beating them again in 2019. President Trump’s National Security Adviser, John Bolton, gives every impression of never having seen a square kilometre of Middle Eastern soil which could not be immeasurably improved by being pulverised with US ordnance.

It would be comforting to believe that wiser heads will prevail. Sadly, history suggests otherwise.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 26 July 2019.

13 comments:

David Stone said...

Thankyou Chris Trotter for consistently going to the truth of international matters that the MSM consistently misrepresents.
But this time I do not think that the US will attack Iran militarily . If they were going to they would have done so when their spy-drone was shot down; but what that demonstrated was that Iran can defend itself , and the US only attacks countries that cannot defend themselves.
There are two things I suspect about the last minute abortion of the retaliatory strike for the drone downing ; one I suspect Trump was not informed of it until it was under way and had to offer an unbelievable explanation for aborting it, and two I expect he was cautioned by Russia in an urgent call that such a move would quickly lead to a full scale global confrontation.
The era has passed when the US could convince the whole world that it's wars were in the interests of humanity and democracy. The mask is off and it is clear that if the voting population of the US cannot vote in Tulsi Gabbard and or she cannot any more reign in the US hawks than Trump has been able or willing to do, it will have to be done from outside the US. Either by Europe eventually calling enough and calling her (US not Tulsi) out, or Russia taking the chaos and destruction to the US homeland which they seem to be equipped to do.
I think even Bolton Pence and Pompeo can recognise this even though they might be insenced by it. Unfortunately it is not at all clear that this trio might not welcome such a development on the religious grounds of bringing on "The Rapture" but Trump is the President and I don't think he is so spiritually enlightened.
D J S

Shane McDowall said...

Poison gas was used by the Italians in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War (1935-37) and by the Japanese in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-45).

The USA should keep drone bases and island bases like Guam but otherwise withdraw all troops, warplanes and warships out of everywhere.

The Middle East, including Israel, are not worth the bleached bones of one Texan grenadier.

The people of America will save a fortune and the lives of their sons.

America's foreign policy makers are total amateurs who appear unable to learn from their mistakes. Even I could see that Iraq was just Vietnam with sand.

But if American foreign policy was all about oil, they could invade Venezuela next week.

My guess is most Venezuelans would welcome the Americans with open arms.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

There are any number of questions on Quora asking about a war against Iran. And any number of answers explaining why the US can't succeed. Very interesting reading. That then I guess nationalism has always been the last refuge of a scoundrel. And certainly Trump is beginning to need a last refuge.

Anonymous said...

"When Saddam dared to act independently of the US, the debt America owed his country, for its costly – and ultimately futile – war against its Iranian neighbour, was forgotten in a heartbeat" - well last time I checked, the Saddam did do the minor act of invading Kuwait. The left seems pretty quick to over look this minor fact, or dont you condemn this act?

Nick J said...

Until recently the US could station a carrier task force to control the safety of oil tankers passing through the Straits of Hormuz. Today's new low cost high tech make carrier fleets sitting ducks. Gunboat diplomacy no longer scares Iran.

At stake is the entire world economy. A quarter of the world's oil egresses Hormuz. It is within Iran's power to choke that supply. Given US aggression it seems amazing that Iran has not done so.

Bolton, Pompeo et Al, are they today's Crassus, who lost his life and legion to the Assyrians for imperial vainglory?

The stakes for Iran are much lower than for the "Empire". It's basically a mutually assured destruction scenario, a flattened country versus a flattened global economy. No winners here.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

"Last time I checked, the Saddam did do the minor act of invading Kuwait. The left seems pretty quick to over look this minor fact, or dont you condemn this act?"

Couple of things. Are you constantly checking to see if Saddam Hussein did or didn't invade Kuwait? Are you expecting to check one time and find he didn't? Just askin'.

I can't speak for all the left, and it's a bit stupid to lump the "left" together as if we all believe the same old shit. But none of the left that I knew actually supported the invasion, though one or two didn't have a great deal of sympathy for the Kuwaitis, but that was largely due to their lack of democracy. But as I remember most of us condemned it in no uncertain terms. And until he did invade Kuwait and threatened oil supplies, the West – at least the US anyway – supported him in his invasion of Iran. And ignored the various uses of poison gas and the like on both Iranians and his own people. Actually I'm not sure I see your point their anonymous – I'm not even sure you have one, except you're desperate to beat the left with a pretty much non-existent stick.

Allan Vernon said...

Iran could well turn out to be Trump's Viet Nam.

Andrew Nichols said...

My guess is most Venezuelans would welcome the Americans with open arms.

Ummm.... like theyve turned out in their hundreds of thousands to receive and anoint their Washington appointed colonial governor Guaido....not?

You really dont get much of the history of Latin America under the colonial Monroe Doctrine do you?

Ian said...

The 2003 invasion of Iraq was seen by some in the US Administration as a stepping stone to the correct target (Iran) others saw it as a diversion away from that target to a more manageable one. Iraq being smaller and having suffered 10 years of softening up beforehand (weekly bombing raids).

I think that the US military is Ok with "Mowing the grass" in Iran (as the Israelis would say) or "Shock and Awe" as a previous US President put it or "Terror Bombing" to use the terminology of 1937 and 1940. Bombing military and civilian infrastructure, killing plenty of military personnel and civilians in the process. Trump will then announce it is time for the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow the evil regime. He will then resort to insulting Iranians when they don't do it. I doubt the US Army and Marine generals are so keen to march on Tehran. An air war produces fewer (US) coffins to be flown home.

greywarbler said...

Anonymous at 14.31 asks a question: why bother to take it seriously and answer it when he/she doesn't even know what word to call himself (he embraces she)!

David Stone means 'rein' I take it - as in controlling to stop: in this sentence:
'it is clear that if the voting population of the US cannot vote in Tulsi Gabbard and or she cannot any more reign in the US hawks than Trump has been able or willing to do, it will have to be done from outside the US.'

It doesn't sound as she wishes to queen it over the hawks. For light relief watch the 1986 kidult film Short Circuit. I wish that our diplomatic failures could all be turned into films with conflicts resolved, some laughs and a happy ending. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-U_N37aV4g

Shane McDowall said...

" You really dont (sic)get much of the history of Latin America under the colonial Monroe Doctrine do you ?".

I have probably forgotten more about Latin American history than you actually know.

And I do know the origin of the term " Banana Republic ".

I suspect most Venezuelans would welcome American intervention as their own government clearly does not give a shit that people are starving, hospitals have no medicine, utilities are crapping out and crime is out of control.

But better that Latin Americans blame all their problems on the USA. Means they do not have to examine the real reasons that their countries have shared histories of brutal military dictatorships, corrupt ruling elites, genocide against the Amerindians, and hyper-inflation.

There are good reasons why Latin Americans flee to Anglo-America, and it has jack-shit to do with the Monroe Doctrine.

I look forward to the day that the peoples of Latin America

Charles E said...

I bet the US does not start a war with Iran, especially under Trump. He believes in the power of his own voice, not the military I believe.
But Saudi might.
The Persians and the Arabs are very old enemies indeed, but now you have a more modern poison at work: the most vicious of hatreds at work: That of Cain of Abel. The civil war within young immature and violent Islam.
Both sides spend fortunes on the military. In Iran it is the number one business owner. In Saudi the totalitarian family that owns the whole show loves all their latest shiny military toys and itch to use them.
And no, they do not get all these from America. Like Saddam did they get them from everywhere. States and dealers.
Actually I thought Iraq had mostly Soviet weapons Chris. That is why partly perhaps he was so useless in war. Inconvenient for the left thesis I know...

Nick J said...

Couple of comments Charles.

First I think your observation about Trump trusting his voice over his military is spot on. Very likely the case.

Second. The world was awash with Soviet era weapons. The Soviet ended thirty years ago ergo they are obsolete. Modern Russian weaponry by contrast is more advanced than equivalent US weaponry. The scary part for the US is that it is by contrast not only superior but it is far cheaper. Iran is buying it...that's why US gunboat diplomacy is a no go.